And he will burn the world
by LikeIdTellU
Summary: The Old gods are stirring, waking from slumbers spanning eons. They see a boy crowned King before his time, still bitter. They see their champion failing at his task of protection. And centuries later they see a man about to die, and they plot and they plan and they begin to meddle. But they should know that what they plan will burn the world.
1. Chapter 1

Title: And he will burn the world

He had been running, leaping over fences and onto rooftops in an effort to shake his pursuers. It hadn't worked, of course, he had known it wouldn't work. His pursuers were too well trained to fall for such tricks and too many in number for him to fight and kill.

He knew it was not long before he died, but he was damn well not going to make it easy on the little shits.

It was inevitable that he came to a dead end, a chasm too far reaching for him to have any hope in jumping. He briefly considered simply dropping to the ground below but one look at how so dizzyingly far below the ground was quickly dissuaded him from this idea.

The sounds of pursuit drew closer and someone fired a gun, narrowly missing hitting him. He thought about taking his gun out and ending the wannabe snipers life, he could find a hidden shooter just by tracing the trajectory of a bullet, but he ended that line of thought. He only had seven bullets left and he wasn't about to waste them on a sniper that couldn't shoot straight.

_Jump_. An icy thought trickled into his mind, _jump and live._

Fuck off, he thought.

Another shot was fired, the bullet grazed his arm. It wouldn't be long now.

_Jump,_ came the thought, _jump and live_.

If I jump, I die.

_Jump._

Oh fuck this, either way I die.

He jumped. The wind rushed past him, the ground neared and...

He landed on soft springy grass, where he was sure he should have landed on stone, with a dull thud, slightly winded but otherwise none the worse for a seemingly dead man.

The fuck? He thought when he looked up to a canopy instead of the shanty town he had just fallen out of.

What the hell?

Aaron Cross was sure that he had been nowhere near a forest. So what had happened? And more importantly where was he?

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter one**

When men dressed in armour and red surcoats with a golden dragon embroidered into the material rode into the clearing on bloody _stallions _Aaron knew he was in trouble. It wasn't just the sharp pointy metal objects being waved in his general direction, oh no as if _that _wasn't enough. No, he couldn't understand a _word they were saying!_ They also believed themselves to be knights, if the armour and swords were anything to go by. And there was one with a crown perched precariously on his blonde hair who probably thought he was King Arthur.

Great, not only had Aaron landed safely in a place he was pretty sure hadn't been here when he looked, he was now being accosted by sword wielding megalomaniacs. At least he thought they were megalomaniacs, he wasn't quite certain. They could be great guys for all Aaron knew, but he wasn't feeling too lenient, not when his day was shaping up to be a rerun of the bloody matrix.

The sword wielding lunatics were now shouting at him, before shouting at each other and finally shouting at a young awkward looking man wearing an honest-to-god _neckerchief. _Well, it seemed like the guys liked shouting. He wondered if he should try to help the cowboy wannabe, but he seemed to be holding his own in the argument.

Now the only thing to do was try not to get killed by the knights of the fucking round table, and try to find out, if possible, where the hell he was.

First rule of survival, make like you're not a threat.

Aaron spread out his hands, palms out to show he was unarmed [he wasn't going to tell him that it didn't matter, he _was _a weapon. And anyway he had a gun shoved into the waistband of his pants, just in case].

"Err…I come in peace?" Okay, well done Aaron, portray it as a question why don't you? Oh well, it doesn't matter, they can't understand a word your saying.

Two knights watched him in interest, one saying something to 'King Arthur' who immediately stopped arguing with the neckerchief guy and rolled his eyes, muttering something that Aaron assumed was the whatever language they were speaking equivalent of 'figures'.

He got off his horse, motioned to his knights in very shiny armour [who wears armour and red surcoats in a fucking forest? Aaron wondered if these guys _wanted_ to get shot] to put away their pointy and quite possibly sharp swords.

"Arthur", he said, pointing to himself before pulling off the crown and waving it at Aaron, "Arthur".

Aaron stifled the urge to giggle hysterically, he had a suspicion were this was going. And sure enough as King Arthur introduced each of his knights as Gwaine, Percival, Leon, and the guy in the neckerchief was Merlin.

Oh my fucking shit, Aaron thought a little desperately, this cannot be happening to me.

But then Arthur's face stretched into a broad, proud grin and he gestured to the surrounding landscape. "Camelot".

Oh shit.

Aaron thought that either these men were mad and this forest actually was in the middle of the desert, or he had somehow, at the risk of sounding cliché, fallen back in time. And these men did not look mad, and he _knew_ the forest hadn't been there when he had last checked. His next thought went to Marta, sitting alone in the apartment they had rented, waiting for his return. Aaron hoped that she could survive without him for as long as it took for him to get back to his time frame. His mother hadn't raised a quitter, or at least Aaron thought she hadn't, could easily be his training.

King Arthur beckoned to him and then pointed to Merlin's horse, saying something in whatever language he spoke. It didn't take a genius to realise he wanted Aaron to come with them.

"Alright, alright", he grumbled, not willing to start a fight and unwittingly kill one of the armoured crack-nobs, "I'm coming".

Aaron eyed the horse as he approached, he hated horses and the dumb beasts hated him. It seemed that at least that hadn't changed, and the stupid dumb animal- so placid for Merlin [wasn't he supposed to be an old magician?]- gave him the evil eye as he mounted and then refused to move.

Merlin snickered and mounted behind him, taking the reins from Aaron and immediately the horse quieted down. Aaron thought it was rather unfair.

XXX

His first reaction to Camelot was 'omyfuckingshithisisamazing' before reality kicked in and he began assessing various escape routes. _There, across the roofs, there's a clothing line connecting one of the houses to the wall. The wall itself is full of holes; it would be Childs play itself to scale it. Three guards at the gate, looking pretty alert, three more guards around the corner within shouting distance. Come up from behind and make sure they don't shout. Wow, securities pretty crap. _

They rode into a courtyard, the crowds parting in front before merging once more when they had passed. Merlin brought the devil beast to a stop with a flick of his wrist that seemed so damn ridiculously easy but was actually not. Aaron should know, he had had to learn how to ride a horse for one of his assignments- a simple Intel gathering mission- and speak Latin, the woman he had to seduce was a sucker for dead and dusty languages.

_Latin…_

Aaron could have hit himself. It was so damn easy! The Arthurian times were supposed to be around the time _Rome _was invading Britain.

He dismounted and turned to King Arthur. "_Do you speak Latin?" _he asked in, well, in Latin.

Arthur grinned-more of a beam, actually. _'Yes and thank goodness for that_", he responded, "_Otherwise we would have had to spend days trying to understand what the hell it was you were speaking. Allow me to introduce myself; I am Arthur, King of Camelot"._

"_Like you don't remind us every hour of the day…sire", _Merlin grumbled, the sire obviously insincere.

Arthur ignored him with an ease that screamed of practise. _"What is your name, stranger, and from what kingdom do you come from?"_

"_I'm Aaron Cross, sire, and I come from a country over the sea, not one of the kingdoms of Britain"._

Arthur nodded, apparently satisfied. _"Then you shall be my guest, for as long as you are staying here, Aaron Cross from over the sea. Merlin, show him to one of the guest chambers then report to the stables"._

Merlin pouted. "_Yes Sire", _then more politely, "_This way sir"._

Aaron followed him, seemingly unaware of the suspicious glances traded by Arthur and his knights. He could have rolled his eyes at the sheer obviousness of it all, what King would keep a stranger close, in his own castle no less, unless they were suspicious of ulterior moves and wanted to keep him close. Aaron wasn't sure whether he should feel insulted or amused. He opted for a bit of both.

"_So", _he said casually, forgoing subtlety now he didn't have the CIA constantly up his arse, "_Your King doesn't seem to trust me, what have I done?"_

Merlin stopped in his tracks, paled and evidently found something really interesting going on in the vicinity of his shoes. Aaron made a mental note to teach the poor guy how to lie. "_Uh, I have no idea what your talking about, Arthur's just hospitable"._

"_Yeah and I'm Beyonce"._

"_Who?"_

"_Nothing", _Aaron said innocently, "_Where's this guestroom I'm supposed to be in?"_

TBC

Id really love and appreciate feedback, you know. *hint hint, nudge nudge *


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter two**

'Supposed to' were the operative words in that brief sentence because as soon as Merlin left him alone Aaron ditched the room and started exploring because, honestly, he had gone back in time. How often did one get to go back in time? It must have been like a once in a million life times opportunity and hell would freeze over and get turned into a popular ski resort before Aaron wasted this opportunity and stayed in his room playing by the rules of the bloody king-of-anyone-but-him like a good little boy.

He was going to play by his own rules, simple as that, and if Arthur had a problem with that then he could go shove it up his arse.

So he slipped past the pathetic excuse for security and headed outside, taking a deep breath of the slightly smoky air. Where to go? He thought, where to go?

It was mid-morning and the streets of Camelot were clogged with peasants going about doing whatever peasants did. Quite a few of them paused and pointed at his clothes, making Aaron quite aware that he very conspicuous in his jeans and grey hoodie and that his clothing would make it much easier for Arthur and his knights to find him. One of the many rules of survival, blend in.

He moved quickly, slipping through the crowd like smoke. By the time he reached the markets he had lost his hoodie, was wearing a worn green but still serviceable tunic and had a handful of copper and silver pieces he had pinched off a passing noble.

By the time he made it to the gates he was outfitted in a full medieval kit, leather breeches, boots, tunic and some sort of knapsack full of what passed for way bread.

And by the time Arthur was alerted to his guests disappearance, Aaron had walked a fair distance in the tree tops, walked through a stream and laid several trails before finally setting up camp and enjoying a nice meal of maggoty way bread and rabbit.

XXX

"This proves that he is inline with Morgana", Arthur said angrily, pacing up and down the throne room.

Merlin rolled his eyes and shared a long look with Gwaine that clearly said 'and this is the man we allow to rule us'.

"This proves nothing sire", said Sir Leon, "Maybe he simply decided to take a stroll and lost track of time".

"He evaded all the guards", Arthur said insistently, "If that is not magic then I don't know what is".

Merlin had decided that enough was enough, Arthur was sounding way too much like Uther for comfort and as usual it was left to him to be the voice of reason. Merlin couldn't blame the King; Gwen's disappearance had been hard on them all, and the threat of Morgana massing an army in the east just made everything a lot worse. But still, enough was enough.

"It doesn't take much to evade the guards, Arthur", he said, "Lord knows I do it all the time. But Arthur, the guy cant even speak the language, how the hell is he going to manage spying?"

"It's a possibility".

"Now you're just being surly", Merlin informed him, "For the sake of making my life miserable. You don't know any of this for a fact, he could be just a confused foreigner for all we know".

"Then why didn't he stay in his room?"

Merlin paused, considering his options before deciding to spill. "He was suspicious", he said slowly, "He asked me what he had done to gain his trust. Arthur, he didn't know what was going on, he didn't know about Gwen's disappearance, hell I don't think he knew who you were when we rode into that clearing. He seemed pretty confused".

Arthur stopped pacing. "And how do you know he was telling the truth? How do you know he isn't just stringing us along?"

Merlin looked him square in the eye, a grim mask flitting across his face. "I know", he said softly, implying a secret laid bare recently that had caused a lot of tension between the knights of the round table and King Arthur. Merlin still remembered how Gwaine had defended him against his fellows and King, announcing that anyone who so much as looked like they were going to harm Merlin were going to get walloped. It was Merlin's favourite memory of Camelot.

Arthur took a deep breath. "Okay then", he said, "Now on to the next issue, scouts report Morgana's army is on the move. Morgana has threatened to kill Guinevere if we so much as move to defend ourselves".

"What do we do, my lord?" Gwaine said.

Arthur briefly shut his eyes as if denying the painfulness of reality. "We pray for a miracle".

The words rang hollow and doom like in the near empty chamber. Everyone present bowed their heads and let silence rein, they had all learned long ago that there was no such thing in miracles.

TBC

REVIEW!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter three**

Aaron felt like hitting something, preferably hard because, honestly, his day was starting to shape up like some badly written soap opera. Okay Crazy paranoid Kings he could deal with, falling [literally] back in time was no problem. But gods blinking into his mind while he was sleeping, calling themselves Myrddion or something, and demanding he rescue a queen.

He was having a bit of difficulty processing that.

"So, let me get this straight", he said, "You brought me back in time to rescue a helpless damsel in distress because her husband, King Arthur, is too incompetent to do so. And I have to do this otherwise King Arthur will once again start distrusting magic again and the whole world will go to shit. Am I correct?"

Myrddion tried to keep in a smile. "That is correct".

And because Aaron was nothing if not opportunistic, he asked, "And what do I get out of this?"

Myrddion had been expecting this, and would have been disappointed if Aaron hadn't asked.

"I will immediately transport you back to your century, more or less in the same year you left, and you will get a new chance at life".

That sounded decidedly sneaky and suspicious, Aaron expected a catch, but then again…a new life sounded nice.

"Alright, fine, I'll do it. On one condition".

"What is that?"

"Arthur and his knights are informed".

XXX

A miracle, it was a miracle. Lord Myrddion had appeared himself and had told Arthur to keep watch on the battlements for the stranger, Aaron, who will walk into Camelot at the stroke of midnight with Guinevere.

A miracle.

Arthur had stopped believing those had existed years ago, when a little boy had been flogged in the courtyard at the orders of his father for believing in miracles. And in that courtyard he had prayed and prayed and prayed for a miracle, and it never came.

Turns out he had been wrong, miracles did exist after all.

Arthur decided he could live with that.

XXX

To Merlin, Myrddion had left instructions and a promise, instructions on how to train a dragon [don't ask, it's a long story]. The promise was a little more private, a promise when the story was over, he could be reunited with Freya on the shores of Avalon. Merlin would hold him to that promise.

He waited on the battlements with Arthur, and knew in his heart that when Aaron returned with the Guinevere the last pieces needed would fall into place, and the story would begin to end.

He couldn't find it within himself to care.

XXX

Morgana's blood guard had stationed themselves on a hill, their camp in the shape of a rough circle, their prisoner sitting dead centre.

Aaron liked a challenge, and began to wait patiently.

When the sun began to set and the men below his perch got restless Aaron was waiting. When one of the guards left his fellows to piss in the cover of the forest, Aaron was waiting, a glimmer of steel clasped in his hand. The steel whispered in a tantalizing dance as it slid across the guards pale flesh, opening up the white to expose the red beneath. After that it all went down hill for the ten or so thugs. Poorly trained guards against one highly trained genetically enhanced black ops asset? The guards didn't stand a chance.

Aaron snuck right into the centre of the camp, a small barely there parcel previously clasped in his hand was deposited swiftly into the stew pot. One by one the men ate their dinner, and one by one they began experiencing sedative like symptoms. Soon their was none left to appose Aaron as he got up and cut the bonds of the Queen.

Quick and bloodless, Aaron's favourite type of mission.

XXX

At the stroke of midnight two weary and travel stained figures arrived in Camelot. Gwen was greeted with many hugs and tears and [on Arthur's part] kisses. When all the fuss died down Arthur looked at Aaron, leaning against the wall and watching them all patiently.

"You have my eternal thanks", the King whispered tearfully, "For rescuing my wife. Anything I have is yours".

Aaron thought about that, found it tempting but decided, no. "I've always wanted to learn how to shoot a bow".

Three months later Aaron was greeted by Myrddion as he wandered in the forest, the god beckoned and, without looking back, Aaron followed.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue**

When Aaron was zapped back into his own time the first thing he did was discover how long he had been gone. He had expected a few weeks, tops, but what he discovered left him reeling. Thirty years! He had been gone thirty freaking years!

He contemplated being angry before deciding it was too much of an effort. Instead he bent all his resources to finding Marta, he hoped for alive, but he could take dead.

XXX

The sunlight painted a pattern on the back of Marta's eyelids, tempting her into wakefulness. With a yawn she left her bed, not bothering to neaten the patchwork blankets and shuffled into the small earthen kitchen. She boiled water for her tea, yawning as she did so and wondering how on earth she was going to get outside and feed the alpacas. It was so cold, too cold for her to go wandering outside. But the animals had to be fed, so she would find a way.

The doorbell rang while she contemplated the problem as she drank her tea at the table. Marta sighed, put down the cup, and shuffled her way to the door.

She opened it, and was greeted by a sight she thought shed never see again.

Aaron Cross stood in front of her, dressed in a grey hoodie and jeans and looking for all the world like he hadn't aged, like he hadn't died. He smiled sadly and took her frail liver spotted hand when she staggered back a pace, his grey eyes cataloguing her grey hair, slightly stooped figure and wrinkled.

"Hello Marta", he said softly, "I'm sorry I'm late. Nice farm by the way, need a hand?"

And then he smiled.

**Fin**

**sorry this was so short [no I'm not] but i lost interest and decided to finish it before i decided to stop writing it. There will be a sequel, listed as an avengers/bourne series crossover for anyone who's interested**


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